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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Sharla and Shana, others of Don’s family and friends, and Brothers and Sisters in Christ of Pilgrim Lutheran Church,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
We knew this day was coming, as did Don, who in many ways longed for it, though he had not left us with any specific hymns or Bible passages that he preferred for us to use. As I was considering possibilities, thinking both about my and others’ visits to the Nicols’ home and about how much they loved having family and friends at their home, the passage that almost immediately came to my mind was today’s Gospel Reading, with Jesus’s words about preparing a place for us and taking us to Himself, so that where He is we may be also. We had used the same Reading for Sharabeth’s funeral service less than one year ago, but Rev. Gilbert Pingel told me that he had read these verses to Don when he last visited him last Wednesday morning, the day before Don departed, and that sealed the choice for me. As Jesus’s words applied to His disciples, so they applied to Don, and so they apply also to you and to me. Considering the Reading, this morning we realize that “Don is with Jesus, and you can be also.”
As the Divinely-inspired St. John uniquely reports, our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, told His disciples not to let their hearts be troubled but to believe in God and Himself as God, that in His Father’s house there are many “rooms” (or permanent “dwelling places”), and that He was going to prepare a place for the disciples, would come again, and would take them to Himself, so that where He was they might be also. For all His emphasis on places and preparation, He seems to refer less to a specific location and more to their dwelling together in an inner relationship, as Jesus had stated earlier and would say again later, even praying to the Father for that end result (John 12:26; 14:18-29; 15:1-11; 17:24).
We also find this idea of our dwelling with God in Psalm 46, which we used as our Entrance Psalm, and which the Rev. Barry Hildebrandt of Cross of Christ Lutheran Church in Chattanooga had read to Don the last two times Rev. Hildebrandt was with Don, reading the psalm the second time at Don’s specific request. The psalm’s describing the Lord as our “refuge”, “strength”, “help”, and “fortress” surely comforted Don, who loved ones remember as being very calm, and who Rev. Pingel said was calm even in his final hours. On the other hand, perhaps we hear the psalm’s statement about not fearing though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, and though the sea’s waters roar and foam, and we realize that we are afraid at much less. Jesus told the doubting or discouraged disciples not to let their hearts be troubled, not to be afraid (John 14:27), and, somewhat like them, we are troubled and afraid after Don’s death, perhaps about what has become of Don or what will become of us—has he and will we simply be annihilated? Or, we may wrongly think that we have to find or make our own way to be with the Lord, instead of realizing that we cannot find or make our own way and that the Lord reveals Himself to be the way to our being with Him.
As much as we might have loved and respected Don, Don was not perfect, and neither are we. Our imperfections, what we better call our “sins”, and the sinful nature we are born with, get in the way of our right relationship with God and, more than that, our sins and sinful nature merit not only the kind of death Don has experienced here in time but also eternal torment in hell, unless we, as Don did, turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. God forgives all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives our sin for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, Who prepared a place for His disciples, for Don, and for you and me by His death on the cross for the sins of the whole world (confer Grundmann, TDNT 2:704-706).
I am told that Don always found something to fix or tinker with—probably his being a mechanical engineer. For Don’s salvation from sin, however, as for ours, there is nothing for him or for us to do. Out of His love for us, the God-man Jesus Christ has done it all. Although on another occasion Jesus could say the Kingdom that those blessed by the Father had been prepared for them from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34), we needed Jesus to die on the cross in our place so that, as we are enabled by the Holy Spirit to repent and believe, Jesus can take us to Himself and through Himself to the Father (confer Michaelis, TDNT 5:78-82). And, let us be clear: Jesus is the only way, the only truth, and the only life; no one comes to the Father except through Him; there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among people, by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). One author puts it this way, “The Spirit guides us into the Truth, speaking to us the words of Truth, and the Son, who is the Truth, is the way to the Father and eternal life” (Beckwith, CLD III:178, 224). Knowing Jesus by faith, we know our final dwelling place and the way there (Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc John 13:31-14:31, 98).
Don and Beth joined Pilgrim by profession of faith on September 2, 20‑12; Don’s parents Cecilia and Homer had been members here from March 5, 19‑70, well into the 19‑80s, until his mother Cecilia was buried from here and his father Homer transferred to Grace Lutheran Church in Arlington. As Don and Beth were able to come here less, I visited them at their home more—Beth, until she passed nearly two years ago. Don would always ask me how the congregation was doing, how the Parish Hall construction was progressing, and about things he had been reading in the Bible as part of his personal devotions (Don similarly asked Rev. Hildebrandt, when he saw him, questions about his reading, most recently, in Philippians.) Not everything in the Bible may be clear to us, but the Bible is perfectly clear on, and Don knew, what we need to know for salvation, including how we receive that salvation in the Church through God’s Word and Sacraments.
Conceived and born sinful, Don was re‑created in the waters of Holy Baptism, administered by Rev. A-E Schardt at First Lutheran Church in Longview, where Don also was confirmed in the faith, by Rev. E-H Engel. Don regularly heard God’s Word read and preached; Don regularly confessed his sins and received Holy Absolution; and Don also regularly received with the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar the Body and Blood of Christ, given and shed for him, as for you and for me, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Especially in the Sacrament of the Altar, Don had the Lord in him, and Don himself was in the Lord, whether he received the Sacrament from my hand here at Pilgrim or at home in Henderson, or from Rev. Hildebrandt’s hand at home on Signal Mountain or in the hospital or hospice in Chattanooga. Now that Jesus has taken Don to Himself, all the more is Don “with Jesus” where He is.
“Don is with Jesus, and you can be also”, as you repent of your sin and trust God to forgive your sin for Jesus’s sake, and in God’s time and way. Yet, that fact is still great comfort right now! Amidst his own suffering, through Beth’s passing and then through Sharabeth’s, Don waited more or less patiently for his own deliverance. Last Thursday the Lord so delivered Don, fulfilling all His promises to Don, freeing Don from his body of death (Romans 7:24). Believers certainly can grieve what is a temporary separation from their loved ones, but, as we heard in the Epistle Reading (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), we do not grieve as those who have no hope—the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the body and the blessed reunion in heaven. The Lord’s peace calms and comforts our troubled and fearful hearts. We know and are encouraged by the fact that the great and glorious day described in that Epistle Reading and in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 65:17-25) is coming, when, ultimately in resurrected and glorified bodies, we will be with the Lord always, dwelling in the house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23:8).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +